Every good comedy needs someone like Fischer, a key player in NBC’s The Office and the films Blades of Glory and Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. While those around her are busy being zany, she plays it straight, with a deadpan glimmer in the eye.

You’re funny but you like to play things straight. Is that right?

I don’t have any type of sketch-comedy or stand-up background. I come from a theater background and so we learn to approach the characters as honestly and as earnestly as possible, and I just kind of apply that same philosophy to playing a comedic character or a dramatic character. I just try to root myself in some sort of truth, and I let the situation around me make everything funny. Oftentimes the funnier moment is in the pauses or reactions to the world around my character than to maybe some punch line that my character is saying. In acting school we learned acting is reacting. It’s not just what you say but how you listen to the other person—that whole idea of active listening. And so that’s my approach.
Which actors do you like who are especially good at reacting?

I love Teri Garr. In the movie Tootsie, she has amazing reactions. And Bernadette Peters is so great in The Jerk, and a lot of what she’s doing is playing the straight man.

I feel like it’s the new style of comedy, actually. The Judd Apatow movies have that quality. It’s a little drier.
Was it fun working on Blades of Glory*?*

Amy Poehler—she does this very funny thing off camera. She puts herself in the straight-man role, and she and Will Ferrell would get in these conversations, and she would put herself in the straight-man role: “No, no, it’s not appropriate, Will, it’s not appropriate!” And I’ve imitated that. I’ve completely stolen that from her—sort of like disapproving straight man to his crazy guy. It was really a funny dynamic so I totally stole that from her.
Did you go to comedy college?

I went to a little liberal-arts college in Missouri called Truman State University. I didn’t want to go to college. I wanted to move to Los Angeles right out of high school. A few of us in the theater department ended up writing and shooting some short little sitcoms that ran on the college news station, and we did an entertainment show. We sort of created our own television network.
Did you do drama?

Even in college I tended to get cast in the comedies more. It was what I liked doing. When I came to L.A., I wanted to be on an ensemble-comedy television show. As a kid growing up, I loved Cheers and I loved Shelley Long on Cheers, and I thought, If one day I could play a role like Diane Chambers, a female character that was specific and interesting like that, that would be my dream come true.